13 apps in 30 days: Learning a new language with the iPhone
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There have been many different ways I’ve learned foreign languages: classes in high school, local language centers, private tutors and Rosetta Stone, to name a few.
What I’ve never attempted to do is to try learning a language entirely through iPhone applications.
In preparation for my trip to Tokyo in a little more than a month and zero knowledge of Japanese, I’m setting on a mission to get a basic grasp of the language in 30 days solely through my iPhone.
A quick search in the Apple Store results in dozens of applications promising to improve one’s Japanese. I’ve started with the first 13 free apps that I could find: Start Japanese!, Free Pocket Japanese, Free Japanese Essentials by AccelaStudy, Japanese for Beginners FREE, Human Japanese Lite, Japanese Phrases, Free Japanese WordPower, World Nomads Japanese, Free Japanese Audio FlashCards, Free Japanese Gengo Flashcards, gogoSpeak Japanese Lite, LinguaTalk Japanese 1, Firststep to Japanese Free.
I’ll update this blog in a month and let you know which applications I found to be the most useful, and more importantly, whether learning a new language through iPhone applications will really make a difference when wandering through the streets of Tokyo.
Sayonara for now.
-- Zohreen Adamjee